I’m very happy that my idea of creating Embarrassment Free Zones resonated with many teachers and students. My goal in this post is to establish that there are situations when Free Zones won’t work. Yes, that’s right.
Tag: writing
Turn Local History into Advocacy with Three Different Writing Projects
One of my biggest challenges as a teacher is getting students to feel connected to history. To them, especially at the middle school age, history might as well be the Milky Way– kids are told that it’s real and that they are a part of it, but the scope of history often has such galactical […]
Stop Motion Animation in 5 Steps for Beginners
This month Abigail takes you through 5 steps to start stop motion in your writing class. Jump into the wonderful world of stop motion!
The Un-Rubric: An Experiment in Feedback
Rubrics tend to be about compliance, not thinking…
No Dumb Questions: Using Inquiry to Drive Research
In his 1995 work, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, astrophysicist Carl Sagan wrote a sentence that would be uttered in classrooms around the world for decades to come: “there’s no such thing as a dumb question.” We’ll assume, of course, that Sagan is excluding the students in your class who […]
Writing is in the Details
Why do the details matter? Abigail talks about taking your students writing and reflections deeper with a couple moves in writers workshop with the help of mentors and figurative writing.
Ready to Find Love? Swipe Right on These Five Social Studies Writing Workshops
Choosing the right writing workshop (say that five times fast) at the right time in a content-based classroom will have a large impact on the success of your writing instruction. A workshop that is too complex or does not serve your class’s current needs could also derail your unit, resulting in total heartbreak for you and your students. Preview five, eligible workshops that will adapt to your curriculum and help your students write like historians.
3 Reasons to Use Writing Workshop in a Social Studies Classroom
Welcome to Write Like a Historian! In this series, we’ll explore how to bring writing workshop into the social studies classroom. Every student is a historian. Let’s teach them how to write like one.
A Poem a Day Keeps the Doctor Away
Writing poetry can reduce stress? Shouldn’t all children have access to this tool? In this months beat Abigail brings 3 familiar poetry templates into the content area classrooms.
Stigma in the Writing Workshop
On being asked if they would risk being stigmatized so that they move forward in their learning, the majority of the students said, “Yes, I would.” How many times in the last week/month had they taken such a risk? “Almost never,” they admitted. Even though students may be consciously aware that they must put their learning over their fear of stigma, very few are able to do it at the moment it matters. Isolation and ridicule are scary, especially during the teen years when the need to belong is paramount.
moving writers 